MEETING MINUTES

Present: Eric Loehr, Thomas Laughner, Jefferson Hunter, David Gregory, Marnie Anderson, Eric Brewer, Deborah Hass-Wilson, Nicholas Howe, Sara Pruss, Fraser Stables, and Adriana Chalas

Absent: John Davis

Minutes from November 3, 2011

The minutes of the November 3^rd meeting were accepted as written.

Continuing discussion of turnitin.com and plagiarism-detecting software

The committee was provided with the following draft proposal concerning anti-plagiarism software:

“The Committee on Educational Policy recommends that, for a trial period of three years, the College purchase a site license from Turnitin.com to provide anti-plagiarism software for the use of faculty members. It is understood that using Turnitin.com will be an entirely voluntary matter. Faculty members may use it to check the originality of all papers turned in to a course, or to check the originality only of papers thought to be suspect; or may choose not to use the program at all.

CET will sponsor appropriate workshops for faculty members on appropriate and effective use of Turnitin.com.

At the end of the three-year trial period, CET will evaluate the usefulness of Turnitin.com to the faculty and make a decision as to whether to continue the program.

Funding for the site license ($6200 per year) will come from the CET budget.”

Adriana reported that she had discussed this proposal with members of the S.G.A. and that the majority of students were against it. They felt that using turnitin challenged their academic integrity. She also said that she meets with students brought before the Honor Board for suspicion of plagiarism and she believes the process that is currently in place at Smith works well.

Jeff asked the committee if there was really any difference between a faculty member spending hours researching a questionable paper and running that paper through turnitin. He also said that Maureen Mahoney had seen the proposal and had no problem with the idea of running a trial using turnitin. Jeff noted that the response from Humanities and English departments to this proposal was very favorable.

Fraser asked if students would be made aware that this software would be or could be used in a given class. If the committee agrees to run a trial, there will need to be a policy written by the committee about the use of turnitin software on Smith campus.

Tom made a conference call to Jerry at turnitin in California to help answer some of the questions raised by the committee and also to explain the options available if a purchase is to be made.

Jerry explained that there are two options:

The first is a site license for $6,000/year which allows the historic use of Smith documents to become part of the overall pool of information that creates their database. All documents would be anonymous.

The second option, which costs an additional $5,000/year stores all Smith documents on their own storage device and remains solely the property of Smith College. The committee agreed that though the second option is attractive, it is simply too expensive.

Jerry said that other schools he does business with that have Honor Codes put information about the use of turnitin in the syllabus. Some allow students to turn their papers in to turnitin and then have an opportunity to rework the paper prior to turning it in to their professor. Faculty can see each submission and use them as a training tool. If turnitin sees a student to student match, they would reference that the work was like another unnamed student but it gives the instructor a mechanism for getting in touch with that student.

Nick said that he was very conflicted about the use of turnitin on Smith campus and he felt that it sent the wrong message so he would have to vote against this proposal. Sarah felt that it would be very useful in checking against prior student’s work. Fraser said that he expects students will be uncomfortable with their papers going through this process and that having a good policy and communication program will be important. Jeff noted that turnitin will definitely be helpful in certain departments where student work should be individual.

The committee voted 5 to 1 in favor of a 3-year pilot program. They will work on a policy at the next meeting prior to purchasing the software.

Grant Requests

Don Siegel’s repeat request for funding for Dartfish was denied.

Jim Johnson’s request for $359.00 for a new site license for Data Studio was approved.

Faculty Code description of CET

The committee had been given copies of a proposed edited description of CET by Tom Laughner and after reviewing the document the following changes were requested:

1. In #32: add “the latter chosen by committee vote”.

2. In #32a: add “Director of the Sherrerd Center or designate”.

3. Change the specific representative from the libraries to read “ a representative from the libraries”.

The appointment process to CET will be the same as to all appointed committees.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 AM; the spring 2012 meetings are scheduled for 1/24/12, 2/28/12, 3/27/12, and 4/24/12 from 1:00-2:00 PM in Seelye Hall B4. Susannah Howe will join the committee this spring from the Sherrerd Center.

Respectfully,

Connie McGinn, recorder